


Another Insanity

by Molly_Ann



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Bloodplay, Depression, Eventual Original Female Charater Death (although I bet you all saw that coming), F/F, F/M, Hallucinations, Insanity, Internalized Homophobia, Masturbation, Murder, Oral Sex, Psychological Horror, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Smut, Threesome - F/F/M, religious practices, slight stockholm syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-04-29 18:56:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 16,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5138891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly_Ann/pseuds/Molly_Ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Edith Cushing was just another one, and you are the next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pretty Face

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to do this. Because we all want the Sharpe's to carry on their little femicide throughout their travels, right? So I don't do the (Y/N) thing because I personally do not like it in my works. I hope I've made up for it with this. And yes, it's slightly triggering and depressing. But no-one listens to those warnings anyway unless they are really trying to help themselves.
> 
> I was originally going to post it in one whole chunk, but it was even hard for me to read through. Enjoy!

When you meet him for the first time at a ball hosted to celebrate your father’s solving of a case, to say it had been electric would be lying. He was a pretty face, you were convinced, and nothing more. He took your hand and kissed it, longing in his eyes. You were the challenge, because English gentleman in America had little trouble finding women, especially rich and easy-on-the-eye bachelors like Sir Thomas Sharpe. Yet you too knew the trouble and the fear of crossing the ocean over to a new city; born and bred English but matured American, you could yet again deny a simple-minded brat who didn’t have a sore or callous to his fingers to claim hardship with.

You denied him a dance more than once that night. He was persistent, and you enjoyed that a lot. Your father’s mistress scolded you for denying his affections, yet you brushed her off. She knew of the wealth he was acclaimed for. You didn’t want the scandalous, money-grabbing wench even having an opinion on your life.

Lady Lucille Sharpe was a little more bearable. She too had the youthful, sharp and utterly divine features of a god. Yet a little less renown, which settled your nerves as she brought you a drink, and allowed you to lean against the piano whilst she played melodically. The lack of conversation was as soothing as it was not, yet you still enjoyed watching her graceful, and somehow calloused fingers work along the keys of the piano. Out of the corner of your eye in a break between dances, you saw Thomas approaching through the crowds. You made an excuse to leave, and found your father hailing a carriage. You left without word to anyone.


	2. Criminology

The second time made your knees tremble with want. In your fathers study, you walked in to him discussing criminal psychology with said parent. Your father introduced you, to which he confirmed that you’d both already met. He was gracious and delicate, effeminate and intellectual as he invited you to the conversation. Sharpe continued, your father both relaxed and impressed as he took in Thomas’ analysis of his current criminal. His aura spoke of knowledge and wisdom, and he reminded you of a character written from a book you’d blushed upon reading. Banned, no doubt, but you’d still found the copy in a bookshelf stored in mother’s room.

He finished with a conclusion and turned to you, an intimidating confidence broad across his features. “Do you know anything of psychology?”

Your gaze turned back to your father as to avoid getting lost in his eyes, and being completely overwhelmed by his intelligence. “I read many books on it.” You light up your face like a simpleton, faking an excuse to leave yet again. “That reminds me! I need to lend mother a copy of the one I have just finished!” You spin on your heel before either men can protest or bid you goodnight. Before you hand mother back her copy, because that was a legitimate excuse – however not one that required completion immediately - you have to convince yourself that sir Thomas Sharpe, no matter how attractive or intellectual he may be, will not be the man you are required to marry.


	3. Letters

Halberstram, one of your father’s employees, approaches you one day to ask you to pass on a letter to him. He’s an eager, bubbly auburn man with a shaven face and a boyish nature, which is acceptable as he is only twenty-two years of age. You could see yourself being married to him one day, with two fine boys and a rather large house, yet it is one day that seems too far off and too dreamlike to be true. You converse for roughly a minute, and as you do, the fantasy seems less likely. He’s clever, yet with little depth; a fairly regular young scrubbed-clean cop with the ability to pack and shoot a colt.

You take the letter, and as curiosity gets the better of you, you open it. As you read, the truth becomes clearer to your eye. The letter is from a Lady Charlotte Maroni, a woman married to a chief of police in a neighbouring state, who your father is close to. The letter becomes more infuriating once you finish it. Your father has a wife, a mistress, and is committing adultery with a woman you have met once. Enraged, you return to your own room, bury it within your bed sheets and put your face into your hands.


	4. Edith Cushing

The third time you see him, he is a suspect for a case. As a scholarly individual born into a wealthy, successful family of crime-fighters, you are permitted to the station and its files and rooms that aren’t in use. You knock on the door to a room that you can hear Halberstram’s voice within, and after an invitation, you step inside. Thomas Sharpe is looking at you with the sharpness he used in your father’s study and you don’t think you can be in a room with him like this, cramped and small with little room for a bed.

After being greeted by both men, you step inside to observe and gaze down at Halberstram’s notes. Thomas is a suspect for his ex-wife’s disappearance a year ago. Edith Cushing, presumed dead, had left him after a row the family all shared. Thomas’ dramatic tale covered a page produced from Harvey Halberstram’s typewriter, including information on the place, Aderdale Hall, and the vast moors surrounding it. In this almost fictitious-sounding tale, Edith runs out on to the moors, followed by Thomas and Lucille, who lose her within minutes to the fog and the shrubbery. In this tale, the girl does not return.

You doubt this is the truth- that most men of injustice are both wealthy and deceptive, both two qualities that adulterers and murderers value. After confirming an alibi, his sister of course, and running through a few details, both men stand to depart. “I’m sure there won’t be much more news after this, Sir Sharpe. Although Scotland Yard may contact you when you return home.” Harvey is attentive and polite, as if speaking to an idol. Of course the force would dismiss the Sharpe’s with rose-tinted glasses.

“Very good, Halberstram. If we are presented any more news, I shall write to you at once.” Halberstram all but tears the sheet from the typewriter and exits, flashing a smile at you briefly. “I apologize you had to witness that.” Thomas turns to you, a look on his face that makes you feel as if you were truly one of those simple, goalless American girls who treat him a religion. You’re as polite as you can be, acting as if you are just one of those women, like your father’s mistress does, hoping his particular interest will dull. Yet he still escorts you back to the library and document area of the station, where he yet again meets your father to study.

Instead of burying your head in a book like normal, you pretend to read one whilst your brain is contemplating other things.  Like his previous marriage. Like your father’s current affair, and your indifference to it. Like the fact that Thomas Sharpe could have murdered Edith Cushing and how that only makes him more appealing and interesting.


	5. Kiss

The fourth time he comes to see you. He waits until your father is out, at least it wouldn’t be an odd assumption, and knocks the door. You answer of course, and aren’t remotely shocked to see him. He uses the storm as an excuse to come inside – quite a stereotypical one – and like the lady you have been grown to be, you let him in and serve both tea and coffee – however you both take tea – in your living room. He starts slow, about how his name had been cleared, and Lucille, poor Lucille, was no longer so worried her little heart may have burst out her chest, not unlike it did when Edith did not return home after an uneventful hour of waiting.

You start slow too. You talk about your job, the current metropolitan police, and the way both Scotland Yard and the Baltimore police forces work differently. You let everything slide- the tension, the potential murder – and just relax. Until he is, to put it rudely, blunt.

“I feel as if we have what some would call a connection.” He smiles warmly at you and- oh, he doesn’t finish slow. “You see, I haven’t courted anyone since Edith’s disappearance, despite the encouragement to. And I’m thinking that we would be able to build something from what we have, no?”

Your heart beats like a caged bird in your chest, and you feel a little cramped, with him sitting opposite you sipping his tea as if he’s asked a woman to court him multiple times before. The thought that he probably had breaks you from your stupor, and you’re the guarded, intuitive woman your father’s career and mother’s dislike of men raised you to be.

“Then perhaps you should bring me- as your partner- of course, to the upcoming autumn ball in the city?” You ask coolly. If Sir Thomas Sharpe was legitimate about courting you, then surely he’d show you off to your mother and father, the very owner of the police department he was being investigated by, his sister, and all his doting admirers who cherish him so dearly.

“I shall be delighted to do so. I shall pick you up at eight.” It was the response you weren’t expecting, and you had to sip your tea to be able to dull down an ache in your throat. He claimed Lucille would be waiting, and he must leave, so you lead him to the very door he walked in hours before. It was late, and dark outside, raindrops patting onto the doormat. His eyes held yours as he bid you goodnight, and you no longer felt dominant and in-control of your emotions. He kissed you for the first time there, sharp and sweet, all angles on your lips. Your eyes were wide open to catch the intensity of the moment. And you pulled away and bid him a goodnight once more before shutting the door on him, mind racing.

It had not been your first kiss, for as much as a lady as you were, the women and men in your family were both scandalous, and you no less than them. Nevertheless, it left you craving and desperate; hungry for him again like a mewling quim.  That night you spent restless early hours thinking of him, and what you’d gotten yourself into. When you did dream, you dreamt about him slaughtering a dark-haired woman who you knew was Edith, regardless of her appearance which may or may not have been accurately portrayed. You felt amazing, and questioned your sanity when you imagined it was you in her shoes, and felt even better.


	6. Ball

He’s early to pick you up for the ball the fifth time you see him. You arrive in the evening arm-in-arm, and your father’s, as well as everyone else’s in the room, eyes seem to grow the size of dinner plates. You’re holding his triceps and what you can reach of his biceps too, and he tenses every so often just to remind you that your hand is permitted to settle there a little more confidently than your current cautious, barely-brushing touch.

He invites you to dance, and whilst you would love to speak to people with him and just too sadistically enjoy their reaction of shock, jealousy or bitterness; you cannot deny him this time. Dancing was never your strong point as deduction and language was, yet you manage just fine. You let him lead, and follow his example. Finally keeping pace becomes more of a habit and a sport than a task, and you relax into it.

He drops you home after the ball had finished, even though your father is more than capable, and you’re the woman to initiate the kiss this time. You’re playing an entirely different game to what you were before tonight, so you have entirely different rules. You keep it short and sweet, only opening your mouth briefly as a fake invitation before you part and step out the carriage, swiftly walking to your door. A farewell isn’t required.


	7. Disbelief

Halberstram visits to drop a message to your father. You talk, mostly him looking a little sheepish and slightly disappointed when you confirm you are indeed courting the Englishman. It’s not a rare occasion for him to drop in a letter, but as soon as he leaves you run to your room and tear it open. Fortunately, it is not the quim Mrs Maroni. Just some paperwork that requires certain details about those working for him. You sneak back to his study and drop the letter on his desk.

When he returns that night from the station, he sits with you and asks about Thomas. Or, more accurately, scolds you for your involvement with him. You sit there and contemplate what to say, yet nothing can sound intimidating, patronizing or gracious without making a reference to his many women. “Who I see is who I see, father. And in time, you may see what I see in him- an honest, brilliant man, devoted to his work as an inventor and just in his ways.” You finally use your words to your advantage, but when he scoffs and leaves the room, you begin to realise you, yourself, believe nothing of what you just said.


	8. Butterflies

You meet Lucille and Thomas in parks in the summer. Your father has little input on your life anymore-busy with work, and your maid, passed down from his father, cannot see beyond catering to your bedridden mother. You sit in the shade, the sunlight too hot on your many underskirts, and watch Lucille lift sickly butterflies on her finger tips. “They’re quite beautiful, don’t you think?” Her voice is sweet, too sweet for a woman as sharp and cruel as Lucille.

“Everything is beautiful when it’s dying.” You reply, thinking of your mother who is clutching at deaths door and how perfect she looks, frighteningly pale and hair cascading, untamed waves. Lucille looks at you, either shocked that you said such a thing, or shocked that you could be so morbid. Thomas even turns from rolling his sleeves up to catch your eye, but you don’t focus on anything except the yellow wings wilting flat as the creature loses its position on her nail and falls gracelessly.

You leave in a carriage with them, however instead of asking the driver to take you back to yours, you ask for him to take you to a cathedral a block away. You kiss Thomas, clasp Lucille’s hand, and leave without a word as usual. It’s dark by the time you enter, illuminated by a few candles. You’re dead inside, organs at odd angles and soul protruding from your heart. You don’t know why you feel this way, but it’s inhuman, saddening and completely ridiculous for a woman who was so faithful to God, to justice and righteousness. Before you can even reach a confession booth, you fall on your knees and weep.


	9. Mother

Mother dies a week later, and you feel nothing. Thomas holds you close at the funeral, ignorant of the look on your fathers face as he does so, and you pretend to weep into a handkerchief as to not look as indifferent as you feel. You have no tears for her anymore, and no sadness. Mother was the life of the household when she was mobile. When she first collapsed, her aura died.

You lean into his touch and feel completely surrounded. Yet again, you leave with him instead of your father, who – by the time you get home – is with his mistress in mother’s deathbed.


	10. Implications

Thomas suggests marriage in October, and even though you have considered it before, the thought seems completely outrageous. You laugh aloud ungraciously, arms into the sofa of one of your sitting rooms. “Marriage?! With my father still alive?” You giggle more, humourlessly, and he looks at you incredulously. You turn to him; think over your words once more and- Oh. You realise the implications of what you just said and groan, covering your face with your hands. “No, no, not like that... I mean-“

He takes your hands in his and holds them gently. “It’s okay, love. It’s okay.”

For a minute you had forgotten you were discussing marriage with a man who may or may not have murdered his previous wife.


	11. Lucille

A week later again, father doesn’t return home. When his body is recovered, face down in a gutter, chest split down the middle, you feel a sense of relief. The police look for a culprit in his previous cases and old enemies – the ones he’s tried and failed to convict many times, and those who had family members hanging. They’re looking in the wrong place, but you don’t bat an eyelid. Neither do you mention anything when Thomas sees you next and talks about nothing but his invention. The accusation is hanging heavy on your tongue, but you cannot bring yourself to make it. You adore him more than those who have suffered.

You invite Lucille over to your house while Thomas is gathering funding. Your house is empty and dull, too big for you and the decrepit maid scurrying around doing what she can to cover all of it. After a brief, humorous conversation on Thomas’ childhood secrets, you lead her to a music room that hasn’t been touched for months due to mother being ill, and she dusts off the piano and begins to play. Her melody is haunting and enchanting when she no longer has to play for the public, and you’re enraptured in the sound.

When she stands and looks at you, eyes heavy with something not quite fathomable, your heart starts beating fast in your chest. And when she approaches you and takes you hand, laces your fingers, you do not protest. You have kissed another woman before - a gathering in this very room that consisted of drunken, shameless experimenting individuals looking for a next hit – and the moment before felt a little like this; all temptation, guilt, wonder, confusion, sin and accusation. Your lover’s sister kisses you like he does, although her lips are plush with a promise he never has.

She shows herself out after you both share a look of secrecy and promise, and you sit where she sat behind the piano, face in your hands. You have an overwhelming urge to baptise yourself, and be cleansed of the impurity that pulses through you. Yet you doubt even holy water could scald the venom from your being.


	12. England

When Thomas and Lucille announce they are moving back to England, you know you are going with them. You pack what you need the night before, and in the morning you leave to meet the Sharpe’s outside the station, bruised and tacky with the absence of one of the best leaders America has ever known. You arrive early, and to your dismay, Halberstram catches you. He snaps at you, demanding why you are leaving so early after your father’s death with ‘them of all people’.

“I’m marrying Thomas in the UK, Harv.” You’re blunt, but it is the only way to be. His face drops, mouth open to say something, and he closes it again.

“I’ll write to you,” he says, voice weaker. You give him a sympathetic smile and what could have been flashes through your head; the beautiful children, the suburban home, a blushing, brawny husband, a promotion to the chief when the children’s very much alive grandfather retires... Your eyes almost well up, throat tightening, stomach churning.

“Goodbye, Harv.” He walks swiftly into the building, and you turn to see a cart pulling up. It’s going to be a long trip.


	13. Rosary

Aderdale Hall is beautiful. Rotted, decrepit, iced and barely illuminated, you run across the halls, reddened by the clay oozing underneath the sinking faculty, and you just want to lie down with an ear to the floor and hear every whisper and secret the dying house has shimmying across the floorboards. You’re still in a wedding dress, and so running is an effort. You find yourself back at the front of the house, eyeing Thomas as he takes your cases upstairs and following Lucille into a room that seems fairly well-preserved compared to the rest of the house. She lights a fire, and puts you in a chair, lays a blanket over you and goes to make some tea.

You relax, finally at peace. You’re married, in the Sharpe’s house, and although it may not seem like the best place to be free of the sense of impending doom you have felt for months, you feel like the weight is off your shoulders. You listen to Lucille making the tea, until you hear footsteps and sit up straighter, adjusting the blankets.

“It’s a different camomile brew than what you’re used to, yet I assure you it’s good.” She hands over the mug, and you cradle it in your fingers, warming them. She watches you, sipping her own. You haven’t been alone together since she kissed you, not even whilst travelling. You want to kiss her again, although you have no idea how acceptable that is with Thomas in the house. You should feel bad for having romantic interactions with your now-husband’s sister. You don’t.

You sip your tea and the shock hits you straight away. The taste is vile and distinctive, and you swallow for the sake of good graces and resist the urge to stick your fingers down your throat to retch up the concoction when you recognise the taste. Deadly Nightshade. Atropa Belladonna.

You set the tea down, a sense of despair taking over you. Lucille was feeding you poison. And suddenly you’re not very relaxed, and suddenly the world is ending due to all the possibilities swimming in your head. Lord knows what your face looks nice. Lucille killed Edith. Thomas could be in on this as well. The fact could no longer be avoided with pretty faces or chaste kisses; lying safety and warmth. They aim to kill you. You take a deep breath and rearrange your face, even it out.

“It is an odd blend.” You hold her gaze, and see her features flit through a stage of realisation before Thomas is clearing his throat, leaning against the doorway.

“Sister, it is late. I’m wondering if I may steal my wife for the night.” The look on his face makes you blush. And then the implication that Lucille had you in the first place deepens it. This woman just tried to weaken you. And you still want to kiss her and hold her. The rosary you have stored in your case will shine by tomorrow night from how many tears fall onto it when you weep about your fornication, your abnormality and your fallen life.

“You may brother. I will not disturb you.” He extends a hand, and you take it, nervously standing and pushing the blankets off you to walk with him. You do not look back at Lucille.

Once in his master bedroom, yet another room much more preserved than the rest of the house, he looks at you for conformation. You do not think. You shove him back against a door, shutting it in the process, kissing him in a way you never have once before. You bite his lip until there is blood, without thinking, and when you realise you’re expecting him to hit you, or send you off to a sanatorium, he moans a kisses you back harder, gripping your hips through your dress.

You kiss him deeper, his mouth on yours sinful and skilled and you love every minute of it. Yet when his fingers reach your posterior, you squeak in surprise and pull back. His lips are bloody, and he looks ravenous. You’re reminded afresh of Edith and the camomile tea, and the first brush of sanity in months hits you like ice. You’re scared. You want him, but you want this life short-lived in ignorance as much as you don’t. It’s all so confusing, and you shove yourself backwards into the room, panting to regain a coherent thought process.

“My love?”

His voice is sweet and concerned, eyebrows furrowed above eyes that still look hooded and dark with intent. It does not match.  You grip the skirts of your dress and turn away from him, head towards the dark night outside. Your face in the glossed glass is bloodied, your mouth rosy with flush and his essence. You, too, feel as if you are killing your father, your mother and Edith Cushing with every touch you reciprocate. You should ask him to leave, and when he does so, scribe a letter to the metropolitan police. You should put him and his damn sister on death row for their crimes. You don’t.

“I feel a little... Odd...” You turn and feign innocence, ignorance. His face contorts again. He looks genuinely worried; you doubt he is.

“We have a guest room across the hall.” A smile is on his face, and yours is slightly shocked. He does not wish to consummate your marriage? “If you were not ready, you only had to say, my love...” He takes a step towards you and you almost recoil. He holds you tight before he leaves to retire in the spare room, and you pretend to be ‘not ready’, falling into explanations of guilt and shame in his arms.

You wash the blood from your face with a tissue, and unlace your dress methodically. Now clothed in undergarments, you settle yourself under the down of Thomas’ bed. Before a deep sleep overtakes you, you turn to a side table where you laid your rosary. It shines with drying tears.


	14. Promises

Lucille is kinder in the morning. Thomas is outside working on his invention you have yet to observe, and she makes tea in the kitchen as you watch the contents being placed into both mugs warily. She asks you about your relatives in England, to which you are careful about what you say. You are also careful when she sets the tea in front of you, and you sip it. It tastes like an expensive brand of camomile tea you have drank a few times before at your mothers request. The acidic taste was no longer there.

“A different blend again,” she smiled broadly, her face illuminated by the sun. Her lips were as red as Thomas’ had been last night, and you looked away, reminded afresh of shame and your own terror. You still want to kiss her.

“I prefer this one to the other.” You state quite bluntly. She smiles, mouth curved into a sharp line. Her teeth are perfect, yet in that instant, they look filed and sharp, pointed knives. She sits closer to you, and the air is once again filled with drowsy intention, and temptation. You kiss her, yet unlike the first time, it’s deep and wet. Your breaths mingle, and her tongue dances with yours. Her lips are still plush with promises, and you do not feel the urge to bite and claw like you do with Thomas.


	15. Blood

The first time you see Thomas’ invention, it’s drenched in metaphorical blood. Dead, creaking machinery that swings to and fro from the winter wind. The early snow – early November snow – covers the ground around you, red from the clay that seeps underneath. It’s bloody. You think of Edith in these moments, and how much of her blood is smeared among the moors.

“Isn’t it such a wonderful creation?” Lucille looks at you, and you force a smile. Yes, you agree. It’s an advance in technology. You realise you have closed your eyes; open them to Thomas smiling at you. He starts the machine up, and you watch it scoop the red clay out of the earth multiple times as the conveyer-belt runs metal shovel after metal shovel out of the ground. The Sharpe’s are so poisonous even the earth is bleeding.

When it gets late, you follow Thomas to his master bedroom. You kiss him until his lips are bleeding – he bites you so hard blood drips from your clavicle to your dress. You don’t make love. You don’t even fuck. When it lazily dries onto skin and stained sleepwear, you kiss him languidly until you both drift into sleep.

His arms fall on you during the night, and you awake. There’s blood. Blood everywhere. Soaking through a gaping hole in your nightdress, covering his bloodied hands even more, and you scream and bolt upright, his arm falling from he’d draped it over you. You’re bleeding, blood spurting out of a wound in your side. Your hands move down to staunch it, cover it with your dress, and there is no pain. Thomas stirs next to you, bolting upright too. “My love?” He’s worried, eyes furrowing, and when you look at him in desperation, because how could he not see your pain, he moves his hand to cover yours.

There is no blood. You press down firmer before letting go. Your dress is still white, untainted, apart from your blood at the collar, and still in the condition you left it in. You’re unharmed. You look up into Thomas’ eyes and smile a little, falling back into yourself. “Only a nightmare.” You confirm.

He smiles down at you. “No harm will come to you here, love. Only myself and Lucille are present.” You swallow what you could have said about the irony of that sentence, before you fall back into his arms. You’re exhausted. He holds you as you try to drift off, but all you keep seeing is crimson beneath his cuticles and stains on his hands as his arm moves soothingly on your stomach.


	16. Hemlock

Lucille comes into the room in the morning with breakfast. It’s different to what you usually eat, and scentless too. “Thomas is out working on the invention, so I thought you might be hungry.” She sets what looks like porridge down on a side table to hold out your tea. “Drink. You must be thirsty.” You take it from her and sip it tentatively like you usually do to analyze it, and decide it is toxic-free. You’re always paranoid about the food and drink they give you. Cyanide. Belladonna. Arsenic. Mercuric Chloride. You cannot taste any so you drink deeply. It’s refreshing.

“Eat, too. Or you will lose all that weight and your family will think we haven’t been feeding you!” Lucille exclaims dramatically, and it’s so acted it almost looks humorous. You stifle a laugh. What family? The aunt and uncle you will be dead long before they even receive your letter? Regardless, you take the porridge and fill a spoon. It graces your lips, and you lick the spoon, testing your taste buds. You swallow what you can, hiding a spoon half-full so you could put it back in the bowl. Hemlock.

“I’m really not quite hungry.” You murmur, looking her dead in the eye. You might not survive the night, and the thought arouses nothing in you. You feel too far gone. Her eyebrows furrow and lips purse in what could have been frustration. It’s not an uncalled-for emotion. She cannot maim of weaken you, kill or bribe you this way. And you think maybe you should start eating and drinking the toxic products so she doesn’t attempt to find another. She leans in close.

“You may be Thomas’ wife, but I will have to use force with you.” Her voice is as sharp and cold as her threat, however you don’t feel fear as you used to. You look at her, eyes half-lidded.

“And I you, if you carry on dishonestly attempting to murder me with your dishes.” Your eyes snap to focus, and you want to cover your mouth and run in fear of her reaction to what you just said. Her eyes go wide, and she calmly sets the bowl on the nightstand.

“You need to learn your place, ‘love’” She mimics Thomas, and you feel an urge to retch. It’s a caricature of a kiss when she puts her lips on yours, and kisses you ravenously. You wield to her almost immediately, leaning to her touch when an arm wraps around you to pull at your hair and another that digs nails deep into your wrist. When she pulls back, the taste of pomegranate lies between you. Her lips taste more like sweet decay than promises. “Next time, I should poison my mouth.”

“You are poison. Can’t you see what I have degenerated to?” It slips out before you mean it to, and you are certain you won’t survive the next hour. She looks at you teasingly, and frowns, eyes wide with mock offense. They squint when she smirks

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks. What an abominable thing to say to your sister!” You bite her bottom lip to shut her up, which she reciprocates with a moan. You taste hemlock among the blood.


	17. Shallow

You realise what the Sharpe’s plan was all along when Thomas’ eyes light up the moment you suggest helping to fund his machine. He monitors you writing the letter to your bank– of course he would, for Lucille had probably already explained about your outburst this morning – and left to send it off to the office before it gets dark. You bathe during the day – at around 3 – and scald yourself in the water to scold you for being so blind. Thomas must have incredibly high hopes if this one machine is worth lives.

Lucille and he murdered his previous wife – and other women you suspect are buried here after their experience. All for the sake of money. You once believed he had depth and beauty to him. He is shallow now like your father, your father’s mistress and your father’s lover. It takes you a minute to convince yourself that they are all your father’s former partners - that he is dead and gone with the rest of the sibling’s victims. You’re not the first to be married to a Sharpe. You doubt Edith was either.

You leave the bath, sick to your stomach. It is only a matter of time, and you have to make a choice between a struggle for life, or inevitable, soothing and bittersweet death. You cannot decide if you know explicitly knew what you would choose, or if it is physically impossible to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have literally just finished this chapter now. If there are more chapters to come, ignore this. As they are so short it won't take me long to write them, and that is why I uploaded as a multi-chapter, not a chunk when I would've finished it. And I'm cruel, so I leave you all waiting. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment. I need ideas myself to fill between a ghastly conclusion, and other major events in a Sharpe's victims life (they haven't either slept together. And I intend to go into that with great detail. And the Lucille/You side) . So if you want, throw me a prompt before I wrap this up!


	18. Wine

Lucille is nowhere to be seen – so you drink. It’s highly unlikely that wine is a resolve to the issue, however upon finding some untainted alcoholic substance in the kitchen, you feel as if it should help you make a choice. You’re drunk by the time Thomas returns, and he finds you on the hearth downstairs with a mournful look in his eyes. “Did Lucille give you this?”

“No. I helped myself.” You arise, honest as you are drunk as you approach him, leaving the empty bottle behind. His eyebrows furrow. “What? Aren’t you mad at me?” His eyes once again return to their loving stance.

“Why would you think that, love? What is in this house is ours, even if there is little here.” Your eyebrows furrow again. You want him to snap. You want him to hit you. You want him to snarl and rage like a mad dog. This is not the reaction you expected, and it angers you more he is not being _himself._ You want to prove to yourself he is who he is. You want to see _everything,_ regardless of whether you end up dead or not.

“So does that mean we can dig up Edith Cushing’s body, huh? So we can share it while you fuck her dead cunt?” Your voice raises and he looks at you with sudden alarm. The words haven’t fully comprehended in your head yet, although you knew what you said was pretty ridiculous judging by his aghast face. And then it happens. He lunges at you, that expression on his face you hadn’t even seen on Lucille. He’s concentrated and controlled, yet feral. You go down underneath him and a string of laughter erupts from your mouth. That’s it. It’s finally happening.

“Can you not fucking pretend anymore, huh?” He grunts with effort, panting, thighs on either side of your hips. He’s pinned you down, and his face is leering and murderous as he leans over you. “Could you not convince yourself any longer that I was a decent husband, and my sister an honest woman?” You should be petrified. You’re not. You’re drunk, racing with adrenaline, and loving every minute of seeing his true self. You had broken him. You’re too impressed with yourself to feel anything else.

“Is this how you killed my father, Thomas? Is this how you murdered Edith?” Your voice is cracking, and your neck arches back when you writhe. He’s pinning your wrists above your head with his hands. You’re immobile, and it takes you a minute to realise you don’t want to escape from him. The only purpose would be to gain control of the situation, but you do not want that. You want to see him. And when you come to terms with the fogged, drunken memory – if you live that long – you want to make a decision about your next actions.

“Your father begged for mercy. Edith screamed like she did in bed when I slashed her throat and left her to sink into the clay of this bleeding house.” You gulp and try and arch away, but its futile when you realise you’re bucking into him.

“Are you going to kill me now? Or was I not supposed to know? Was I supposed to keep quiet until the poison took its toll, by which time you would have used my cunt, my funds and my presence until you stopped craving them all?” Your voice is menacing, and you still feel woozy from the alcohol. You’re supposed to be terrified. You’re not, because you’ve lived in too much fear of the Sharpe’s.

And even if you did live, and get them locked away, what would you be living for? You have a harlot of an aunt and a sleaze of an uncle whom are your only family members left. And you doubt you’d marry again, for if you found the light of sanity, you would be too paranoid, too fearful to trust a man. You put yourself here, not him, nor her. You liked the danger of the Sharpe’s. You still cherish it. So you bear your throat as his lips descend to it.

“I think you have had enough to drink, my love. You really have quite a vulgar mouth when intoxicated. It’s unsightly of a lady.” He hisses against your throat, and as he bites down, your eyes roll back. The pain is dull and throbbing – would’ve been sharper if you hadn’t had enough to drink. You love it. But right now is not the time to think about the consumption of your marriage. You have to keep pushing.

“Did your sister tell you that my mouth is vulgar? Because she seemed to enjoy the taste.” You groan a little when his mouth slips from your throat down to the opening of your dress. He licks at your so-very-slightly exposed cleavage.

“She did indeed.” You’re in a flimsy nightdress, one you dressed into after your early bath, so he easily can push a hand down your top to grip your breast. You arch up into him, somehow not shocked at all that he had known about you and Lucille.

“After all you’ve done... After all you’ve tried to do to me. After all you’ve done to her...” You sigh as he flicks at your nipple. “I want to consummate our marriage.” You can think about nothing more than the heat between your legs as he picks you up from the hearth and rises with you. You forget about death – about her, about your dad; but you do not forget about brutality.

As he slams the door to his room, you pin him there as you had done three weeks ago, kissing him until the previous wounds on his lips split and there is blood again. However, he is quick to retaliate. He manoeuvres you to the bed and pushes you onto it. He hovers over you, tearing at your nightdress to remove it, and you just lie there, wrapping hands into his hair when he lowers his mouth to your breast and begins to suck. You moan in ecstasy, and it cuts off into a whine when his hand slips beneath your undergarments to touch somewhere you had only touched yourself for hygiene purposes.

Your eyes roll back into your head. And when he moves down your body to mouth at that same place, you scream in mindless bliss. You’re mind is blank. You feel amazing. You don’t think, and his mouth is sinful, slow on your sex. You tear at his hair, and he allows it, thrusting his head up to your touch. He pants for more. You fuck his face until you finish, and fall into drunken slumber. You don’t think about him before, or even during the thick, hazy slumber.


	19. Scissors

The next morning, Lucille wakes as usually. You’re dressed, however your undergarments are soaked through. You blush in embarrassment, yet carry on as normal. She feeds you porridge- you demand it tasteless, because tasteless porridge does not taste like Hemlock, or jam. Or anything that could disguise drugs.

She leaves, and when you feel woozy you realise she has sprinkled opium poppy on your food. You do not mind. You’re too gone to mind. When you see her next, she’s trimming her hair in her room. You promptly walk over to her and take the razor-scissors in hand, to which she turns and smiles, falsely-gracious at you. “Anything the matter, sister?”

You throw the scissors on the dresser and look at her. She knows what you want. She stands abruptly, kisses you deeply and gracelessly falls like the butterflies in the summer into your arms when you entwine your fingers in her hair and pull harshly. You touch her like Thomas touched you. You don’t put your mouth on her, and when she tries to reciprocate; you shove her back, push her to the rugged floor and kiss her again. You’re taking control back. You want so much to stab her with the scissors as a demonstration of this. The last shred of sanity you have tells you not to, so you listen to it.

When she finishes, she releases with a whining cry. You push yourself off her, grab one of Thomas’ handkerchiefs from the dresser and wipe your hands clean. You leave punctually, throw yourself onto your knees in your room and beg forgiveness for your adultery, and fornication with another woman. God shuns you.


	20. Lovemaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains smut. Don't like, don't read. Been waiting for this the whole time? *opens a gate*  
> I do not own the lyrics to a song featured in this work. Cookies to anyone who recognises it.

When you and Thomas finally do consummate your marriage, it’s a week later. Lucille occasionally slipped opium poppy into your food during that week - and last night you grew tired of letting her do so. You bent her over your lap and spanked her with an open hand your father used once on you when you were badly behaved as a child. She cried, but not for you to stop. When you did stop, she begged for you to touch her. You denied her what she so badly wanted and left for your spare room. This morning, she slipped belladonna into your drink. You drank it, ignoring the acidic taste as a display of your power. Your non-existent power that could become as null and void as your lifeless body.

You don’t want to leave – you don’t want to stay and be teased, humiliated, and powerless to inevitable death. You want them to decide on an ultimatum. You need either one of the Sharpe’s to end your mental turmoil, either by making you leave with a threat, or stabbing you in the front. You need the pain of waiting, of the incomprehensible ignorance of your current situation to stop. You and your husband, or his sister, haven’t spoken about anything since you last swore at him. You’ve carried on in silence. You hate it; the plotting, the tension, the deceit. You would prefer to know about what they intend to do, no matter how horrific – for the unknown is always more shocking and frightening if it is a surprise.

You initiate if first – you guide him to the bed, and when he tries to speak, you quieten him. Thomas understands the hint, and you kiss him without biting or bleeding. It’s slow, and he undresses you, pays attention to every curve of your body with lavish kisses. He is gentle – he knows what you need, and he lies to you by getting you off slowly by rubbing your clitoris with calm, slow circles. When he stretches you for the private part of his anatomy, it’s intimate and gentle. He learns your insides with vague quirks of his fingertips, and soon he has you gasping out a second orgasm.

When he kisses you and pushes inside, there is no pain. Love-making was always said to be painful, but he is slow and languid in his strokes inside you. His noises are a little like Lucille’s – soft, whimpering mewls that make you gasp out his name in worship. He never stops kissing you, even when you break off to pant and whine and the sensation, his lips hover over yours, swallowing your noises. You reach completion with him, and when he whispers and ‘I love you’ against your neck, your world explodes. You forget about everything, and lose yourself in the lie you could have lived if you were less perceptive.

The lie you would have lived with him – in love, and bliss, in ignorance and innocence. In love. In the golden haze, he pulls out and lies beside you. He doesn’t re-dress you, and when you try to re-dress yourself, he stops you and moves between your legs, his mouth a panting O, but a whoresmile in his eyes. He cleans himself from you with his mouth, using the tricks he has learnt to drive you to a spasmodically intense climax. His nails dig into your thighs to remind you that what you have just experienced was a lie. You wrap your fingers into his hair to pull him up and kiss him harshly, regardless of where his mouth had just been. You crave the taste of his sister, and when you recognized that as a fact, you became less prude. He bites you. You don’t care.

“I am the dirt you created.” You whisper into his ear as he languidly kisses your neck, and learns how to re-dress you both with your bodies still attached. “I am your sinner, I am your whore.”

He chuckles drily, a sound that you want to burn when it leaves his mouth. “But how do I pay you?”

You lie back, and he is so decent as to pull the covers over you both. As his arm falls on you, more of a gesture of ownership than one of protection, you open your mouth to speak. “Thrill.”


	21. Bleeding Earth

When you awake, you hear a whirring of machinery so you creep downstairs and outside, wrapping yourself up to escape the pre-wintry chill and snow. The earth is crimson with the snow seeping through it, blotched with footsteps of red where Thomas had tread. You step outside and begin towards his invention. You turn back and see red-clay sunken-in footsteps of the bleeding earth. You think of Edith’s blood in this moment- oozing, seeping through every fibre of your being as if you, yourself, had caused her death. You’re an accomplice - you could be avenging it and making it worth the hardships she had to face by throwing the Sharpe’s to Scotland Yard. You don’t.

Instead, you live with the guilt of not prosecuting them. Instead, you live and pretend you are loved. You try and make yourself believe they do not want to kill you – that they have to, or their hand is being forced. You try and believe that they’re keeping you alive out of love and compassion. It makes you feel less damned to be in love.

The snow bleeds where people have traipsed around the machine. The odd tower-like structure pulls scoop after scoop of red clay into another large metal box. You watch Thomas conducting the workers, hurrying them. He can afford not to do anything himself now – with the funds you have transferred to his account. You received a letter from Halberstram earlier this week. Telling you how this may not be the best idea. He probably knows. You internally beg him not to act.

Thomas comes over and embraces you in the snow. He kisses you as chastely and sweetly as last night, yet not as passionate and heavy, and wraps his red-clay coloured hands around you. Edith’s blood stains your nightdress. When he tells you to return inside to warm up and drink your tea, you remember you’re fate. You’ve made a choice.


	22. Monstrous

Lucille slips another dose of belladonna in your tea a few days later. You pretend not to notice. You drink it with calm satisfaction. You know it’s only a matter of time.

You find her playing a haunting melody in a living room you have never only stepped foot in once or twice. You lie in a worn-down sofa, listening to the tune. Melodic and sharp, high-pitched and smooth as her voice, yet as relentless and cruel as her nature. She smiles as you when she sees you drinking more tea. She believes she has victory. You don’t believe it was ever a game. The taste of belladonna hangs heavy in your mouth as you stand. She stands from her seat beside the piano, moves to you and kisses your neck, and then up to your face. Her mouth is a congratulation of a sort, and it pushes you into submission, yet sweetly and lovingly like a lie.

“Well done.” Her lips are languid against your own. “Accept it. Make it easier for him to love and let go. Make it easier for me to destroy you inside out like my love is destroying me...” You kiss her back, and push her back into the piano, her posterior making a piercing tune against the keys as she stumbles.

“I’m not finished yet.” You reply as she wraps her legs around your waist, dress pulling up around her stocking-clad thighs, movement causing more keys to chime with tuneless awkwardness. You shove her leg down on the stool she was sat on, effectively spreading her thighs. You kiss her restlessly, yet don’t make an effort to move yourself any further than to have your hand under the knee wrapped around you, and another on her waist. “My love for you both is so monstrous I will rip apart my body to show you my weakened heart and my intoxicated organs.”

She snickers, and leans into your touch. Yet she knows you are sincere. “Funny... I said a similar thing to Edith about him.”


	23. In Between

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my absence. I hope loads of filth makes up for it. WARNING, INCEST!

You awake one night to an ache in your stomach, no doubt caused by the tea you have been accepting. Thomas is not beside you, as he usually is, and you think nothing of it. You slip out of bed to find Lucille, looking for something you cannot quite place. A distraction, some relief maybe. When you open the door to her room, what you see is something quite unexpected.

Thomas is sat on the bed, and when his eyes come to meet yours, they’re guilty and shameful. Lucille is facing the wall; he is placing kisses down her breast. You stand, and hold your ground. You cannot feel anything. There’s no jealousy – no shock, no rage. He springs from her like a guilty lover, only your eyes tell him to hold his tongue and his ground. Lucille turns, but her eyes aren’t guilty like Thomas’. They’re malicious.

Lucille is half-dressed; one breast exposed, the other side of her dress hanging low in the moonlight. It is not unheard of for siblings to fall in love. It is not unheard of to ‘keep the bloodline pure’. You join her on the bed and press the faintest of touches to her breast. Both your lovers in a bed together. Brother and sister, and they may even be posing like this to bring something out of you. Because they both know. Lucille arches into it, and Thomas looks over his shoulder, eyes widening in shock.

“What, lover? Edith didn’t react like this?” You roll a nipple between your fingertips. Lucille moans and Thomas looks over, eyes darkened by lust and a hint of irritation. You have your back to him, and he takes his time whilst unbuttoning your collar to stroke prickling lines up your back with his fingertips. You kiss Lucille, and it feels like the promise she once held is becoming your truth.

“She ran. But she never kissed me the way you do.” Lucille’s voice is breathy moans, and when Thomas’ lips graze your throat, you almost lose track of your thoughts.

“How far?” You rumple up her dress to feel between her legs. Her undergarments are soaked. She moans in delight, thighs quivering.

“She fell from the balcony. Overlooking the downstairs open hall.” Thomas breathes out against your skin, shakily. Aroused. You turn back and look at him sharply, nose brushing against his. Your eyes glare.

“I’m not looking for lies tonight, Thomas.” As if you punctuate your words, one hand goes to move Lucille’s undergarments aside and push a finger inside her slick walls. She’s tight, but not as tight as you were. He’s been fucking her over this period, and you don’t know if that makes you clench on nothing, or recline in repulsion.

“Oh, oh, God, Edith, hm, she...” Lucille breathes in, eyes telling you not to move inside her. “I  pushed her off... She would not stop sobbing over how we were a repulsive and – ah – an unnatural occurrence.”

You begin to fuck her with your finger. “Good girl.” You praise her, soothing as he is when he lies. Thomas kisses further of your neck, and you push back into him, urging him to bite. When he does, your finger curls inside her and she yelps out beneath you.

“I’ve wanted this for ages...” Thomas breathes out against your neck. He’s unclasped your nightdress enough to grips your breast. “Both of my women...”

“So you haven’t had both of your women before then?” You breathe a shaky breath, withdrawing yourself from his sister, to which she gave a pitiful whine. “Tell me and you shall both be rewarded.” You’re shaking from the control you have. You’re in no mood for lies, yet you know each secret you recover is another step to your death.

“Enola... Enola Scotti.” You reach one hand back to stroke his side in reward. “She... She helped deliver our baby.” You don’t recoil in horror – the Sharpe’s are wrong, and it is no shock to you that Lucille was once with child due to her and Thomas’ activities.

“You’re previous wife?”

“Just before Edith...” Lucille threw her head back when you stroked her folds in reward. “Mm... Oh God, don’t stop...”

“I will, you know I – ah – will if you don’t... Don’t continue...” Thomas’ wandering fingers found where you least wanted them to be. You could hardly focus.

“She was beautiful... Dark soft skin, and chocolate startled eyes.” Thomas licks a stripe down your neck, and you struggle to breathe. Lost in the sensation, you fall back against him with a breathless gasp.

“Pamela was a beautiful ginger. I... Ah, God... I wanted her as I want you.” At Lucille’s words, you snap Thomas’ hand away from your crotch, leaning back to push on his through his trousers. This draws a surprised moan from him as you smirk. You still hold an illusion of control. You still have a coherent thought, which pleasure is not stealing from you.

“And did you take her?”

“I stole her dying breath from her lips...” Lucille gasps out as you push two fingers, slick from her juices, inside her. She mewls like a cat in heat, and when you grind down your palm into Thomas’ erection, he’s harder from watching you. Satisfied with the answers you’ve been given, you cease talking and fall back into his chest, palming him through his trousers harder. He’s groaning into your neck, and Lucille is panting underneath you. It takes a while to remember that this needs to be taken further, because you’re enjoying the sense of being the hand that feeds them so much.

“Clothes off, both of you...” You’re voice is husky with lust, and you feel the world spinning from the power you are presented with when Lucille arches up the bed to escape your fingers and begins to unclasp her dress. You sit up straight as you feel arms coming to the lacing at the back of your dress. Thomas removes it methodically, and lets it float to the floor beside you when you stand. You’re in a loosened corset and soaked undergarments, and you stay in position, surveying the siblings as they undress mechanically, almost as dry and cold as Thomas’ machine that creaks among the blood-clay, and the snow.

You stand up on the bed with one graceful step, and pace to the other end flat the wall. You flop down like a lifeless doll, a cynical expression on your face watching them both with legs spread. You lean back into it, feeling naked although you are still clothed, with hungry eyes watching you. “What; did I... Did I interrupt you?” You’re rude and commanding as your father once was to you when you were a child. It even sends electricity down your spine. “Put on a show.”

Thomas’ eyes turn hungry and dark, in a light you have never seen. Lucille, now naked in the moonlight, leans back to offer herself to him. He looms over her, the impressive girth of his cock hanging over her thighs. You watch the lewd display of him hovering over her, kissing her rough and dirty in a way he has never once kissed you, and watching her spread her legs like a harlot for him to sink in between them.

Lucille makes the lewdest noises, and he the most animalistic you have heard. You dip a finger inside yourself, something you have never done – but it wouldn’t harm to commit yet another sin in your carriage to hell – and you watch them, pleasuring yourself lazily, holding back from a shattering orgasm. You crawl over and can’t help but touch where they are joined, which makes Lucille’s eyes roll back into her head. When you push a finger in alongside his thrusting cock, she screams out an orgasm, contracting around you both. Thomas shouts something incoherent, but he doesn’t come.

He turns to you and kisses you, violent and beautiful. The snow landing on the window dissolves and drips through a crack, landing in the room. He fucks her whilst you lap at her clit hungrily, and she clenches and bucks out oversensitivity, mewling, whining pathetically that makes you buck into _anything_ just for friction. You have this much power over them at this moment. You feel amazing.

When he finishes, he pulls out and with a few moments to breathe, both Sharpe’s remove your underwear and spread your legs. You realise that the power you owned was borrowed when they both leave bruises on either side your thighs with their unforgiving bites. You realise you never had any power at all, not even over either’s biological reaction, when they spread you even wider to both pleasure you with their hungry, dirty mouths.

You don’t count how many times you come. You can’t – only lie there and take it while sinful mouths pleasure you beyond a limit you didn’t even know was present. You fall back to yourself when they pull off, kissing like they need to use each other’s air to breathe. You kiss languidly until you are taken over by exhaustion. You sleep in between Thomas and Lucille, and if feels like you have woken up to a whole new amazing world, or found where you truly belong.  


	24. Lies

Waking up in Lucille’s bed is a rare occurrence. Waking up to Thomas led behind you with his arms wrapped around you is not. You try and move, only to realise Lucille is in front of you. You don’t know whether to feel enclosed, caged like a bird or a deformity in a freak show, or protected and warmed through from your toes, enveloped by love. When you realise this is the first morning you have ever felt truly safe, and at peace, you want to slit your wrists.

 The thought crosses your mind momentarily – and the realisation that you could gain the control back by taking the ending of your life away from them almost re-shatters your knotted-together heart. You think about how many blades are hidden away in the house, and find yourself pressing back against the comforter. You look over your shoulder and realise it is Thomas – why did you momentarily think it had been someone else? – and burst into tears.

Lucille hears you and turns, cradles the back of your head and presses it to her breast. “Shh...” she comforts you. “You’re safe here.”

Your arm lashes out and slashes her across the cheek, filed yet still incredibly sharp nails rake down her face. She hisses in pain, head snapping to the side. She’s bleeding from where you hit her. You don’t feel remorse – it’s a feeling you became incapable of feeling towards your captors when you found out what they were doing. Her face contorts into something wild – and then becomes the facade she’s been holding, only letting it slip occasionally, since you met her. Your eyes still leak tears

She gets the message, leaves the bed to attend to the shallow, yet bleeding, multiple wounds and you feel a sick sense of satisfaction. Does hurting people really feel this amazing? Thomas holds you tighter against his chest, and you feel his own tears against your bare shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.” You turn around to see his face – he looks sincere, but his facade has been sincere since you met him. You’re voice is strong, yet your lower lip quivers. You wonder how much he enjoys this sight. Regardless, you sob into his chest – dry and wracking like she shudders of an orgasm you’d had last night.

“I’m so sorry.” He repeats into your head, and you fall asleep to his mumbles of remorse.


	25. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am tempted to make this a series instead of a work like this so each can have its own tags. I know not every chapter is as angst and smut filled as every other, so would you all like it if I sectioned it better?

You lose track of days and only remember its December when Lucille asks about Christmas. You turn your head sluggishly to the side. And then roll over so you do not see her. You’re growing so weak. You drink and eat what they give you; taste buds too burnt out, like your nerve endings, to even check it for poison.

The first time you realise they’re filling every dish with just a hint of some form of herbal concoction, Thomas is arguing with Lucille. You glide in the spot just behind the kitchen door, back to the wall, effortlessly. There is no need to hide from what they already know you know, but it makes the occasion seem a little more exciting. That emotion doesn’t come naturally anymore. Living with the Sharpe’s puts a whole new definition on awe and shock.

“We don’t have to go through with this, Lucille.” His voice is hissed, pained, and this line of his turns your stomach with hope for the first time in what feels like years. “She knows what we are. She coul-“

“Exactly, you blithering idiot!” Lucille has always been the harsher of the two. However hearing her insult Thomas sets your teeth on edge. Love isn’t always roses and sonnets, yet it shocks you to find the Sharpe’s bickering after all they share. “She knows! If we allow her to live, Lord knows the consequences!”

“But she is smart, Lucille. She could help. We could keep her here as my... Sign her off as our sister! Burn our records and start again!” Your stomach twists. You are a Lady Sharpe, but becoming one in that sense? Thomas sounds so enthusiastic, and you want to clutch something and rake your nails down it. You, an accomplice in a murderous, incestuous, money-grabbing relationship?

Lucille scoffs. “You’re in love again?” You peek around the door-frame to see Thomas’ head bowed to the floor.

“She’s everything we’ve ever wanted, Lucille. She accepts us.” You catch Lucille’s stormy eyes softening momentarily. You swing back around soundlessly, not wanting to be seen.

“She is everything and more, Thomas.” You hear a spoon clink against a glass, and you know she is stirring in your demise. “But she’s too clever, and too unstable.”

You walk away briskly, knowing they will be approaching to feed you where you were led on the hearth. You catch some more of their conversation before you exit the hallway.

“I love her Lucille.”

“Oh, Thomas, Thomas, Thomas... You loved them all.”


	26. Bittersweet

You start refusing to eat or drink again – and then you become weaker and iller, which has nothing to do with poison. It becomes apparent that Thomas really does love you when he sneaks out, then back in at midnight to feed you with plain porridge you accept because the taste is of nothing.

“You have to eat, my love.” He soothes you, stroking hair back from your face, sticky with the sweat of a restless night. You look up at him through sickly eyes.

“I heard you and Lucille talking the other day.” You murmur against the spoon pushing against your lips.

“Where do we go now?” He murmurs when you finish your first meal in two days. You catch his sorrow-filled eyes on you again, and gulp at the intensity. You place the spoon in the finished bowl on your bedside table, shameless of your nightdress around your thighs from the tossing and turning you’ve been doing to try and feel comfortable. “Where do we go, my love?” He repeats, holding you to his breast like Lucille did. Your voice is as null and void as you feel.

“I don’t know.” You reply, holding his gaze. He clasps your hands and presses them to his chest.

“Can you feel my heart? It beats for you, my love. Can you not feel my humanity?!” Yet you cannot feel a pulse, for your fingers are numb with possible lack of circulation due to anaemia. You feel if he held you too tightly, you’d break. Even if you could, you are aware his heart has beaten for two women many a time. His humanity radiates off him. He is scared of an outcome. Love flows from him in wave upon wave of passionate destruction. Hunger and bloodlust surges through him, a human emotion if ever there was one.

“I love you.” You ball your fists up in his shirt, burying your head in his pectorals. It’s true. You love him. “If I didn’t, I would have killed you and Lucille both, or left this wretched place! Oh, God, I’m going to hell because I love her too!” You sob into his shirt; eyes leaking like your mouth was with words. He holds you through it, steady even when the storm subsides like a gentle rocking ship.

“You’re perfect... I’ll run away with you, and Lucille too when we can convince her to leave this wretched place!” You wrap an arm around his neck, pulling him down to your level like clipping the wings of an angel.  

 “No. Never. You wanted this. You’re going to suffer...” You press your lips together and he whines in a frustrated cry. You don’t want to live anymore. Not even with love and ignorance of your situation in mind. “And you’re going to love me until you find another woman. And even then when you bring the musket to her throat and fire, you’ll love her and be thinking of us.” You hold him to your neck, head swimming with power you never once had tonight.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” He cries, passionate and dramatic against your skin. You chuckle like his sister taught you to, dark and almost malicious.

“I’m making you realise what you’ve done to us, Thomas. Enola, Edith, Pamela... Surely it is too early to be filled with repent?” His sobs stop abruptly, and he stares at you. You’re both sat in his bed, but when he lunges and pins you down, you fall boneless.

“No. No, I’m not. It’s you. You do this to me.” You smirk below him, the slave ordering the master. Control is amazing, and you feel like his prosecutor. Scotland Yard has nothing on what you can do to him, and the thought sets you ablaze. Why bother escaping? You can end this, but not through the modern methods.

“Oh, Edith is rolling in her grave because you said to me what you said to her!” You delightedly smile, reaching a hand up to card through his hair. His face is aghast.

“I wanted to save you from Lucille. Now I’m trying to save you from yourself.”

His words fly through you, and you slump once again. You’re mad with grief and lust and horror, hysterical with impending death. You should never have thought those thoughts, said those words, felt this way. “Get off me,” you mutter, yet he nuzzles even closer. He has won, but he has not won your affection. “Get off me.” You repeat, and you catch a hopeless expression in his eyes before he rolls off and gets into bed beside you. You face one way, he faces another. You dream about murdering his previous wives. You dream about murdering your father.

Insanity is a bittersweet sickness. You never see the truth.


	27. Ghost

When Lucille asks for more funds transferred a week later, you snap at her too. “Of course, of course I will.” Your voice is like your mothers when she used to soothe you. Until it isn’t. “Of course I will, you frivolous fuck!”

She’s a little taken aback, until she isn’t and her eyes snap to you sharply from where she is sat behind her piano. “There is no need for that language, my dear. What would your father say?” Her eyes were mock offended, until she realised the implications of what she just said. Lucille chortles with victory, the faint lines caused by your nails raising and falling with every movement of her face.

You turn away from her, refusing to sink to her level. And then you remember you already have. You huff out a sigh, tired of this false pretence. You wonder how indecisive the Sharpe’s are to keep you alive this long. Or they’ve possibly set you a date. You turn over and face the cotton of the sofa, eyes closed until something leaps at you through it. You fall flat on your behind, gasping and screaming in horror as white, soaked-red apparition flows through the cotton. Lucille is still playing piano, Wagner if there ever was a time for music, seemingly oblivious to your horror.

“Leave, or you will kill us all!” It screams at you, and you slash at it with your nails, led on your back as it wails and moans like the rotten wood of the house. You close your eyes, no longer able to bear the bleeding, empty sockets it gazes at you from. You gasp down air when the screaming recedes, and look up to see Lucille hovering over you.

“You worthless bitch!” You snarl at her, leap to your feet and claw at her. She fights you off, pins you back o the floor when you both crash to it, panting with effort. You’re snarling like a mad dog, nails aimed for her own eyes. “What have you in this house?!” She seems shocked from your outburst – and then you realise why. You stop, limp and incompetent beneath her, breathing rasping and heavy. You look up, and there is no evidence of what you have just experienced. Only of your own trauma and dismay.

You are either mad, or delusional, or drugged. Your mind sets on a little of all three, but mainly on the latter. Lucille helps you up, however she is unable to lift you as your muscles liquefy in her grasp.

You doubt the grotesque spectre you just witnessed was primarily due to the hallucinogenics you are filled with.


	28. Weakness

You don’t accept their relationship, yet somehow the Sharpe’s find it acceptable to kiss in front of you now they do not have to hide it. You think it is karma, for being with both your husband, and his sister. Now you’re caught in a triangle – on of love, misery, abomination and immorality. So on a rainy morning – one that wets and soaks the snow, freezes it down to bloody masses of ice – you kiss Lucille in front of him.

It seems to have the opposite effect – when he calls her Lucy and you his woman – and you and your female lover both end up in his bed, exploring bodies and curves, angles for hours of daylight you still have left. It’s softer, and you don’t talk. You appreciate. You learn. You feel. And come apart when he says your name softly in your ear.

You’re so weak – you choose when you eat, and when you drink. It’s draining, and you feel weary even moving. You fall asleep to the steady thrum of Thomas’ heart, and Lucy’s pulse under your fingertips.


	29. Fantasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of you can think of some good ideas for betas, I might need to get this show on the road... All my works are unbeta'd... do you think I should get one?

You slit your wrists in the bathtub, yet realise it’s all in vain. You cannot get deep enough with the blunt instruments here, and whenever you press down harder, its a reflex or something otherworldly that pulls you back. Lucille is convinced there’s a week until Christmas. It could be spring, and you’d never know, wouldn’t care about the days. You just want love, and death, and silence.

You use the rag you dry with, and slice it up with one of the blunt knives to make into rolls of bandage. When you leave the bath, sanitized and open wounds covered, skin glistening a watercolour red, you hear an elderly croak from behind you.

“Hear us, but you see us not.” The voice, perverted by what sounds like gramophone static, echoes around you. You lose footing on the tiles; fall to the floor on your posterior.

“What do I do?!” You cry to them, those that you could hear yet not see, yet there is no satisfying response.

“Harlot, wench, tart of a girl! Murder my children and leave, never return!”The voice is angry, and you feel as if claws are slashing at you, making the cuts on your forearms even though you know how they were executed. “Whore of Satan!” The static screeching comes louder, yet more erratic, and you hold remnants of the towel around you as if it can protect you as the voice cackles insults like a Salem witch. “You killed me, Mrs. Sharpe! You killed me, and Margaret, Pamela, Enola and Edith! You killed us all!”

And for the second time you can see something, yet you can’t really see it at all. A red figure convulses and limps, stretches towards you; and with eyes wide, mouth screaming, gasping, panting, you run in a torn bathrobe into Thomas’ room.

You pass out twice before you can calm your hysterics, and when you wake up after the first time, Thomas is picking at your flesh with his teeth, nails digging into your skin in his rush to peel the bandage from you. When you scream, writhe, he looks at you remorsefully - as if you are unsalvageable, incomprehensible and helplessly mad. Like you are the one harming him with no provocation. Your eyes roll back for the second time – the last time before you awake – when he gazes down on you, mouth rife with torn flesh and dark blood, an innocent, questioning expressing on his lips.


	30. Messiah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I'm drawing to a close. Send me any prompts before it happens and I'll get them done. Again, thanks for reading, and all the lovely comments!

Mania.

Hysteria.

Obsession.

Fixation.

Delirium.

Insanity.

Words bleed into your mind, and in your last week on the earth, you feel euphoric and divine. You force Thomas to treat you like a goddess, yet it doesn’t take much persuasion as he bends on one knee as if he is proposing to you all over again. He kisses your feet, and your neck arches, feeling as if you were his saviour, his Messiah. He leans up, and you feel extravagant when you have to bend to kiss him on the mouth, not falling to his level yet. He reaches up to pull you closer, yet you have control to pull from him. It earns you a low growl, to which you smile. He still refrains himself, arms dropping to his sides in vain.

“Would you like to kill me, Thomas?” You are the temptress in his sheets, suffocating him with darkened, scaled wings. You are his veins, carrying essence to his being to keep him burning, suffering, _surviving_. He looks up into you, and your eyes threaten to lid with passion.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, voice whimpering, whispering to you. You can smell his arousal - you can smell his fear and remorse.

“Would you feel any better if Lucille takes my life?” You toe his flagging erection to bring life to him again. He moves into you, and you find how responsive he is to touch pathetic. His eyes close, yet when you take the sensation away, they open.

“You are mine, and mine alone...” His voice is sensual, and you want to give him back control just to feel that sensual, carnal voice coaxing you to wave after wave of euphoria. You find it how responsive you are to sound pathetic. “And I shall decide whether I grant her your soul.” He stands, and you allow him that. You have no intention of allowing him to ghost his lips over your neck – yet it happens, and because of this, you allow the bite that follows.


	31. Arise, Fair Sun.

You pick at the scars with effort. It’s the only thing you are able to do. Blood loss has weakened you, so you eat to gain more energy, uncaring of taste. The contents of said bread, porridge, or whatever they decide to fill your plate with is undecipherable. You doubt they’d try and spike you with questionable substances now.

Yet they do add opium to your food. Not to capture you – you are caught. You’re too high to think of another reason except kindness. To numb your wrists to the dull fractured pain. To numb your soul to the conscience you have almost lost. To make you numb, dumb and stupid. If they do not kill you now, you are sure to die of multiple natural causes.

Thomas and Lucille sit with you, upon the bed. The do nothing, except seem to listen to your laboured breath minute after minute. When she finally speaks, it’s cold and remorseless. “Would you like to hear about the others?” You look at her, eyes sharpening, fog clearing from your vision. You know enough.

“No, thank you.” From the look in her eyes, you know she is going to tell you regardless if she pleases. You know just what this means. You will not escape their insane whims tonight.

“Father was a brute. He beat mother, day after day, while I cared for her, fed her, healed her.” She looked into your eyes, yet she seemed far away. Or maybe it was you that was so distant? “He us left for another woman when I stuck the cleaver in her head. When I was sent far away-” She said the words with disgust, curling her tongue as if to rid her mouth of a foul taste “- and Thomas educated with the little wealth we owned, no one ever knew that he had been the one to distract her while I snuck into the bathroom, a weapon big enough to rock her core in hand. She caught us as lovers, and beat me mercilessly for it at every opportunity. She did not deserve to see us bloom and flourish”

You hated the side of yourself that was completely besotted with the tale. The crime. The horror. The abomination. “When Thomas came to get me from that god-awful place years later, he had a woman by his side. I hated her from the moment I saw her, yet was consoled by the fact that he had not and would not sleep with her. She was plain, and irrelevant, and just a little too dull. When I told him to asphyxiate her, your darling husband obliged.” She combed a hand to his cheek, and faintly ran her fingertips over his jaw. His eyes held yours, and all of you were so fixated by each other Lucille had to drag her hand back. Her brother was of angelic beauty, and you both knew.

“Pamela was the second, and by then we were both sure how to cover our tracks – to keep a pretence up. I preferred her, yet she seemed to have a lack of depth. Pamela was one of the most curvaceous, stunning women I have ever known. She recorded audio tapes for a living – her father owned a huge industry creating gramophones and musical technology – and so she was everything we needed. Fortune, beauty and idiocy. I drained her like a leech until the last drop. You may hear her if you like – the bitch stored tapes in our closets for little Edith to find, and we couldn’t have you finding that so we collected them. Would you like to... hear her?”

You shook your head no. You’d shatter hearing the voices of those women you are doing injustice to at this moment by being in this bed, accepting Thomas’ hand in yours and Lucille’s words with curiosity and interest. Lucille was a perverted shepherd, leading a flock she felt she had to devote her life to guide. And Thomas was the wolf in sheep’s clothing, only bearing its throat to the shepherd to be granted scraps of meat, and a light to follow. Fascinating seemed too docile a word to describe their relationship, their reasoning, their mindset.

“Shame. Her voice was British as I am bred. Unlike Enola. Enola was Spanish, beautiful and free until we trapped her. She was young – naive and spirited, with a tender heart and dark, soft skin. Thomas loved her for her naivety, and I could say I did as well. She enjoyed everything she did almost too much. And the poor creature had no words when she found out that Thomas was sleeping with me instead of her. It broke her heart, and yet she delivered my child even though she knew who the father was. The shock eventually killed her – I merely blamed her for the death of our sickly child...” She looked at Thomas, and they shared a look which could have been grief.

“Edith was smart and precocious – a novelist at a mere age. She didn’t seem... appropriate for what we had planned, yet Thomas was sure.” They exchanged a look, and you felt it a little odd how he had said nothing. Yet you accepted that the ladies discussed were once his civil partners, and he must have felt some form of attachment to them all. He became timid and docile like a sheep in these moments, yet you knew the wolf was begging to be released.

“She was cautious as a thief amongst a crowd in a jeweller’s store, watching and waiting until a right time. And we waited, until her blasted father hired that detective. We were forced to leave, yet not before we killed him as to allow ourselves one last opportunity to strike at our prey.” The detective, you assumed, would be Mr. Holly, a man who you had seen talking to Harvey many-a-time. The man mad, hot on the Sharpe’s tail, yet never quite reaching his desired goal. Too little proof, too many people against his cause.

“Of course, after my darling left her those words, she came to him like a moth to a flame. When they married, she lived with us... And to my disgust, became the first woman, exclude myself, to have slept with my brother...” Lucille was filled with passion- ownership over what was hers. Yet she never spoke to you this way. Possibly with the knowledge that you were hers too. “I could hardly compete with a woman who was so deliciously guarded. She kept myself and Thomas on our toes, running about the house uncovering secrets and horror on her way. I believe she may have been able to see the entities here – my mother, and those before her.

“When she caught us together, she ran. Her disbelief was sweet, and in all proof she had found, she truly believed that we were unrelated. She is the sun, and she should kill the envious moon with integrity and light. Yet she did not, and in her struggle to stay present, she brought multiple detectives to our door.” Lucille tutted her annoyance; Thomas’ grip tightened on your hand. You looked him in the eyes, and he almost looked ready to spill tears for his loss. And a loss yet to come.

“And are you the envious moon of the suns granted affections to the sky?” Lucille shook her head no. Your voice was steady as his hand, a vice on yours. You were the sun, he the sky and she the moon. An eclipse had almost been complete – a fingernail of light lay upon the world from your fading rays. You let your hand slip from Thomas’ as if you were truly falling from the heavens, and your eyes became unfocused and blurry.

“It is at night I own the sky, and I never tire of the dark.”


	32. Lamb

____You hated him most when he came to you on dreary, grey days. When he kissed you with passion and you lay down for him like a maiden going to her first bedding. Willing, open and obedient. Even if your body wanted to deny him, you would not be able to. Even if your mind did, you wouldn’t even attempt it.

He is gentle with you like you are finest, thinnest glass. He lays you down, kisses you with open slowness, at first, to allow you to set the pace. At times, you need it hard and fast. A brutal reminder of your situation. Your figure is so slight now due to lack of food, lack of activity, and your skin so pale due to a lack of light in the winter chill. You are so fragile with yourself he learns to treat you like he is taking your maidenhead once again, and in the grey light of the day, it truly feels like he is.

You have never felt more connected to everything. Colours seem sharp, bright, and vivid. His body is defined in the light – shirtless, pale and lightly muscled. He too has grown thin – thin enough you can feel his ribcage with your fingertips. His pace is languid and slow – it gives you time to appreciate how red his dull nipples become when pinched – how his posterior is pert and rounded, perfection like a woman’s in your hands. How soft his moans are, when he slides inside, and how his face twists into one of innocent bliss.

How plush his lips are when he kisses you, soft and slow with his pace. You are connected, and your world is as dull as it is vibrant, your pain an inconsequential nothing when he runs fingers up your scabbed-over scars. His sweat-gelled hair in your hands, his mouth to yours, or your neck or breast. His legs inside yours, just pushing and bucking ever-so-slowly.

The opium makes you lose time, and you must have come at least three times judging by the contractions around him, the way you feel wracked and bled-dry when he finishes slowly, yet thoroughly. You lie together for a while, and the world spins above you.

You made love. That wasn’t a fuck, or even sex. That was love, and he nurses you through the afterglow. You hate him. You love him. He’s a murderer. You’re an accomplice. He’s insane. You’re hysteric. He’s remorseful. You cannot feel it. You lie naked and he pulls the sheets and eiderdown over you.

Your mentality has become so warped you see them as righteous as you are returning from the butchers. To them, you are cattle that is harvested, bled, sold and eaten for benefit and profit. You are the predator the wolf has sunk its teeth into and tore down. You are the sickly lamb Lucille has chosen from her flock to make mutton. It isn’t greed, or spite, or petty desire that you see. It is a method of life – routine, more solid that most families. It is purpose, and satisfaction and a desired goal. They have more of a foundation than most people of this era do. You, Edith, Pamela, Enola, Margret and their mother are the building blocks, flayed and shaped to create walls.

You submit blindly, even as you are prancing to slaughter


	33. Dying

It seemed so ironic that when you recovered, they dragged you down. You’d been eating well – the food served tasteless without an acidic volatile aftertaste that screamed deadly nightshade – and  nursing the scars yourself with stolen medical supplies. Lucille left to run an errand, leaving you and Thomas alone in the house. He read Sacher-Masoch to you, while you lay in bed. You felt terribly odd, and the feeling only became worse when certain lines from the novel spun around your head.

_‘You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood...’_

_‘Whoever allows himself to be whipped deserves to be whipped.’_

_‘My heart is a void, dead...’_

The novel itself is all on a man craving punishment and subjugation from a woman he idolises and sees as a goddess, the higher standard of woman he only dreamt and painted of before. Yet the words scrambled inside your brain form a deeper meaning, and in your recovering state, you come to a sick realisation.

_Father. Holy Father._

Thomas reads on, oblivious to your intake of breath and pounding heart. They’re going to flay you alive. They have half your wealth, more than enough to live on, and now they are finished... You have days at most. You resist the urge to scramble to one side, to kick and thrash at your husband so close to you that you can feel his breath on your skin as he reads... To think you were going to lie down and take this a few hours prior! You don’t want to die! You want to live, and give up this sick, twisted dream of marriage, children, and love inside this ghastly house.

You don’t want them to take what is your away from you!

You awaken as if you had fallen into a slumber not unlike the princess in the Grimm’s tales he had read to you yesterday. You’re alive. You’re healthier than you have been in weeks. You can fight, and now that you have the moral strength, you can kill. So you continue listening. You dull yourself, and attempt to stop fidgeting and moving from the adrenaline rushing through you. You’re regulated. You are steady, and compliant once again. Thomas reads on with the book he found for you and is reading to you quite possibly so you can learn the depth of his affections.

To think he actually loves you slots a knife between your shoulder blades, but it is too late now. You know. You don’t want to die. You want to save her, and save him, and save Edith. You want to be everything you can with this newfound strength. You want to be the kidnapped innocent all the penny dreadful’s write about. You want to be the girl that sends men to war with words and your simple success.

So you plan. And so you wait. And you tell Thomas you are tired, but you ask him to keep reading from the armchair while you lie down and plan an escape behind closed eyes.

What you want is so cruelly taken from you when Lucille returns. When she screams and conducts Thomas from her bedroom with a voice so authoritive you have never heard anything akin to it. He leaves the book face down on his armchair, whispering sweet, comforting nothings into your forehead before leaving to find her. When he closes the door fractionally, you dash out of bed and scramble in the bedside drawers. You’re hoping for letter openers, butter knives, pens, quills; everything and anything. Anything sharp, rigged or weapon-like.

What you do find is a pen so beautifully crafted and so lightly made you almost feel remorseful for giving it this purpose. You turn it in your hands as if it is the blade of a dagger, and you see an inscription in feminine lettering.

_Edith_

You cradle the pen into your palms and turn to look into the empty room. His room.

“I’m sorry.” You announce, not even sensing shame for talking to yourself, or whoever else might be listening. “I love you. I’m sorry. Thank you.” You whisper into the dulling winter day. You think you hear a reply, but it’s far too late for that. Too late to change minds. Too late for revulsion or thought or remorse. You creep from your room, and run down the stairs. You’re escaping. You are leaving now, and there’s nothing they can do about it. You get to the bottom of the hall, but he is blocking the door. They can do everything about it, and they won’t let you escape even if they die trying. So be it.

She is also waiting with a carving knife in hand. You’re on the floor beneath them with the knife stabbed into the floor above your head in a matter of seconds. You stand no chance with the pen, but in the scramble you stab it once into Thomas’ broad shoulders holding you down, and once into Lucille’s strong thighs pinning yours. You struggle in vain for several minutes, screaming and crying with Lucille, who is screaming her effort into you, and Thomas who is whispering sweet nothings into your shoulder. She find the knife handle and yanks it out with a ragged scream. Your white nightdress is covered in blood, and none of it is yours. You stab him again in the back, yet he doesn’t seem to mind. You are soaked with his tears, and you feel his love pushing onto you like the blade Lucille now has to your clavicle. Love. Love is absolute, and undying, unchanging. Thomas Sharpe’s emotions will never die for you like his sisters will.

When you feel your muscles go lax, you know your body has given up, and your mind will follow. Thomas dismisses Lucille, who is hesitant to get off you, and wraps his hands around your throat. He looks into your eyes. You say nothing. Lucille pins your hands above your head with hers, soothing spiral patterns onto your wrists with her nails. It is an intimate moment. You wouldn’t enjoy being killed any other way. His eyes say things he could never –

_I love you._

_I always want to be with you._

_I am nothing without you._

_Stay with me._

And then he squeezes slightly. Enough pressure to make you feel it. The pen slips from your unfurling fingertips and rolls across the blood-patterned flood. _Edith._ You watch the makeshift weapon as a drop of his blood slips from his shoulder onto it. He’s on top of you, holding you compliant, and both your eyes are locked on the inscription. _Edith._ When he says I love you, you know it is for her. You look to Lucille, an appraising look in her eyes. She’s ready. You’re ready. Thomas is not.

“I love you, and I never would have thought I’d feel this much acceptance from another human before.” Lucille’s words are calm and collected in your ears. Yet sincere. She’s been dying for someone to just accept her, and accept her abnormality, her faults. She’s been dying for someone to accept her love for Thomas as something righteous and moral. You allow and allowed yourself to do this much for her.

“You’re so beautiful.” You whisper, and it’s true. Tears begin to fall from her eyes. She’s ineffably exultant. Complete. You hope you have been enough to show her that more reassurance is not required. That she can now live peacefully, not in doubt or in insecurity. You can only hope that you have shown her how deep your affection and acceptance lies.

They’re going to kill you, but not in cold blood. You face your eyes upwards, and behind Thomas you see the figures of his two previous wives. The one to the left of him - grotesquely morphed, dripping red - is cradling a child, whose weeping arms reach out to you, a loving expression on its face. The other is pure alabaster, arms outstretched, palms up, ringlet hair flowing to the floor where her torn, knotted dress lies. They watch you as Lucille leans in to kiss your mouth wetly, tears on her face.

She falls back on her heels, watching as Thomas digs his thumbs into each side of your windpipe harder. Your vision is darkening around the edges like a photograph, and you watch his face until he leans down to kiss you. He pulls back, increases the pressure. You attempt not to struggle at the discomfort.

A sharp knock at the door startles Thomas into squeezing harder momentarily in shock. “Scotland Yard, open up!”

Your death wasn’t as drawn-out and gracious as you would have liked it to be. The snap of your spinal cord and the crushing of your oesophagus and trachea was a sickening sound. One that you will never hear again. The last thought on your living mind was one you would have never thought yourself thinking. You never knew quite what happened after that slight slip of his fingers that had been ever-so-deft on your core before but what you observed hours after your death lead you to an afterlife most entertaining. Your body flopped there, on the wooden, sinking floor like a red-clay brick. Like a fish hauled onto the deck of a boat. You were gone, and nothing was certain. Except one thing.

You would never meet Sherlock Holmes in person.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh... My... God.... I hope I finished that right, because writing that.... Was like loosing a child. BUT NEVER FEAR! I'm off to write a sequel... I damn well hope you guys have seen the abominable bride, because... Well, shh... Thank you for joining me on my tour of love, misery and glorious three-ways. I hope you'll stick around for the aftermath. It'll be up as soon as I write it (I'm buzzing for it so you probably won't have to wait long) and enjoy the Lovely Bones style perspective. I hope you enjoyed. This last chapter actually came out a lot more satirical than intended. Ooops.
> 
> Comment if you have any ideas for the next one, because right now, all I have for advice is my Tom Hiddleston obsessed Sherlock/Marvel friend giving me advice on how I could cross it over.... And she just wants me to add Loki. (not happening. sorry guys.)   
> Thankyou all, and lots of murder-love-femicide cookies!
> 
> ~Dalena


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